Hesitated before getting rid of Towmax

[Dcopenhaver]

You know we all read the forums, we all know there are thousands of trailers compared to maybe the hundred(s) bad Towmax stories, and who wants to spend money on new tires for their new trailer with new tires already? In the spring I found a six inch bubble on one tire before our trip to GA, swapped out the tire, and thought "ok, that was our one bad experience, how could it happen again?"
Fast forward to this July. The entire trip to SC I religiously checked pressures, temps, and shape of tire. This one tire seemed odd but it made the entire 900 miles round trip and I really couldn't figure out what was really bothering me.
Well after all the stress of traveling we decided to upgrade those tires to 17.5" G114s.
Look at this stack of slightly used Towmax tires!!! That one tire had about 1.5" increased diameter and the sides of the tread looked stretched! Dodged the bullet and will not regret the upgrade.

 

[Jim.Allison]

File a claim with TowMax and get it replaced. Then Sell them to your landscaper for his utility trailer. Good catch. BTW,I dont like the top on either.

You know we all read the forums, we all know there are thousands of trailers compared to maybe the hundred(s) bad Towmax stories, and who wants to spend money on new tires for their new trailer with new tires already? In the spring I found a six inch bubble on one tire before our trip to GA, swapped out the tire, and thought "ok, that was our one bad experience, how could it happen again?"
Fast forward to this July. The entire trip to SC I religiously checked pressures, temps, and shape of tire. This one tire seemed odd but it made the entire 900 miles round trip and I really couldn't figure out what was really bothering me.
Well after all the stress of traveling we decided to upgrade those tires to 17.5" G114s.
Look at this stack of slightly used Towmax tires!!! That one tire had about 1.5" increased diameter and the sides of the tread looked stretched! Dodged the bullet and will not regret the upgrade.

 

[rxbristol]

Your lucky you made it...it looks like it has a broken belt. I know because I had one tire, years ago, that did the same thing. It looked different but I couldn't put my finger on what it was...100 miles later it blew. Unfortunately, the other tires were taking the excess weight on the trip and it caused the tire on the same side to take very visible damage. I tried to limp back into the town I had just gone through 2 miles back, but I didn't make it 2/10 of a mile and the other tire blew. After 5 hours waiting for roadside assistance (another long story) we made it to Lubbock. Now I had two new, but mismatched, tires and no spare. While in Lubbock, I replaced the spare and bought another matching tire. On the way home another tire on the other side blew. I made a vow to never tow another fifth wheel again without LT tires. I bought 17.5 rims and put on Yokohamas...never had another problem.

 

[TravelTiger]

Wow!!! Sounds like what was happening on one of ours. Belts inside had busted. But ours looked like a hex nut when it was removed. Did you notice if the "enlarged" tire was the spare, or one of the original? I'm curious if it was even the same sized tire. Someone noticed in the pic that ours was a 17" tire. We had no idea!!

 

[rxbristol]

Wow!!! Sounds like what was happening on one of ours. Belts inside had busted. But ours looked like a hex nut when it was removed. Did you notice if the "enlarged" tire was the spare, or one of the original? I'm curious if it was even the same sized tire. Someone noticed in the pic that ours was a 17" tire. We had no idea!!

Now THAT'S a great picture of a potential problem.

 

[Jim.Allison]

I wish all these ST and towmax threads could be consolidated. This information is so important, I have been keeping up and I notice there is a towmax problem every 3 to 4 day on HOF, that is just us. How many more are there?

 

[Dcopenhaver]

TravelTiger, ours was original tire and I checked sidewall to make sure. Even had same date code, 3512.

 

[natureboy396]

Same here, last trip I noticed the tire had a slight out of roundness to the tread footprint, belts had separated, this pic is the good side. I figure 4500 miles at best. Ditch these tires at all cost, just don't risk it.

 

[barneyboy]

I have a 2015 Cyclone 4200 toy hauler with approx. 4500 miles on these BLOW MAX tires. After reading everyone's horror stories I wen out and bought 7 of them yesterday. Hopefully we can travel a little easier now and enjoy the road instead of looking in mirrors the whole trip....

 

[ILH]

I have a 2015 Cyclone 4200 toy hauler with approx. 4500 miles on these BLOW MAX tires. After reading everyone's horror stories I wen out and bought 7 of them yesterday. Hopefully we can travel a little easier now and enjoy the road instead of looking in mirrors the whole trip....

What replacement tire did you end up buying?